The Climate Change Climate Change
The number of skeptics is swelling everywhere.

By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL

Steve Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure him on the science of man-made global warming. When the administration proved unhelpful, Mr. Fielding decided to vote against climate-change legislation.

If you haven't heard of this politician, it's because he's a member of the Australian Senate. As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing to kill its own country's carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again doubt the science of human-caused global warming.
[POTOMAC WATCH] Associated Press

Steve Fielding

Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as "deniers." The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S.

In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic, where President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of the population believes humans play a role. In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country's new ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the geochemist has since recanted. New Zealand last year elected a new government, which immediately suspended the country's weeks-old cap-and-trade program.

The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists' open letter.)

The collapse of the "consensus" has been driven by reality. The inconvenient truth is that the earth's temperatures have flat-lined since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps, hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon.

Credit for Australia's own era of renewed enlightenment goes to Dr. Ian Plimer, a well-known Australian geologist. Earlier this year he published "Heaven and Earth," a damning critique of the "evidence" underpinning man-made global warming. The book is already in its fifth printing. So compelling is it that Paul Sheehan, a noted Australian columnist -- and ardent global warming believer -- in April humbly pronounced it "an evidence-based attack on conformity and orthodoxy, including my own, and a reminder to respect informed dissent and beware of ideology subverting evidence." Australian polls have shown a sharp uptick in public skepticism; the press is back to questioning scientific dogma; blogs are having a field day.

The rise in skepticism also came as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, elected like Mr. Obama on promises to combat global warming, was attempting his own emissions-reduction scheme. His administration was forced to delay the implementation of the program until at least 2011, just to get the legislation through Australia's House. The Senate was not so easily swayed.

Mr. Fielding, a crucial vote on the bill, was so alarmed by the renewed science debate that he made a fact-finding trip to the U.S., attending the Heartland Institute's annual conference for climate skeptics. He also visited with Joseph Aldy, Mr. Obama's special assistant on energy and the environment, where he challenged the Obama team to address his doubts. They apparently didn't.

This week Mr. Fielding issued a statement: He would not be voting for the bill. He would not risk job losses on "unconvincing green science." The bill is set to founder as the Australian parliament breaks for the winter.

Republicans in the U.S. have, in recent years, turned ever more to the cost arguments against climate legislation. That's made sense in light of the economic crisis. If Speaker Nancy Pelosi fails to push through her bill, it will be because rural and Blue Dog Democrats fret about the economic ramifications. Yet if the rest of the world is any indication, now might be the time for U.S. politicians to re-engage on the science. One thing for sure: They won't be alone.

An an environmentalist, I am a sceptic too. Because "climate change" does not address any core environmental issues (neither it can fix them), because it looks at temperature fluctuations / CO2 levels as its core instead of environmental damage and destruction.

I believe that permanently destroying an acre of rainforest EVERY minute around the world is a greater concern to the greenhouse effect than factories emissions. With no trees and diminishing carbon sinks you'll never be able to fix the issue of rising CO2 levels.

To make it worse, climate change is damaging the environmentalist movement because climate change whackjobs are undermining environmental efforts, focusing on the wrong issues and helping discourage funding and support to protect and restore the environment.

Krypton

Are you guys honestly going to say civilization is incapable of changing the biosphere? Clearly, our species does have an effect on the atmosphere. That is a consensus. I'll take science over politics any day.

Magnetonium

quote:

Originally posted by Krypton
Are you guys honestly going to say civilization is incapable of changing the biosphere? Clearly, our species does have an effect on the atmosphere. That is a consensus. I'll take science over politics any day.

Whats being done about it? Trading carbon credits? Writing a wish list for the next generation? Climate change science doesnt give a rats ass about the environment.

We need to curb and reduce our emissions in any way possible regardless of whether or not climate change is even an issue. The ocean is already suffering.

ziptnf

quote:

Originally posted by Magnetonium

Whats being done about it? Trading carbon credits? Writing a wish list for the next generation? Climate change science doesnt give a rats ass about the environment.

Uh, would you rather see our government sign programs to help reduce carbon emissions and set energy standards for big corporations, or have them require that every semi on the road get 2 miles a gallon while pumping out toxic waste into the air that everyone breathes? The people who say that our environment hasn't been negatively impacted by our terrible ecological habits make me absolutely sick, and to simply ignore it an push it aside as another "liberal spending plan" absolutely slays me. It's a shame we don't care about the environment we live in.

Krypton

quote:

Originally posted by Magnetonium

Whats being done about it? Trading carbon credits? Writing a wish list for the next generation? Climate change science doesnt give a rats ass about the environment.

What we do irrelevant. The world's climate is warming and it is being exacerbated by our alteration of the chemical balance in the atmosphere. It might help you to stop politicizing the science behind global climate change.

Magnetonium

quote:

Originally posted by ziptnf
Uh, would you rather see our government sign programs to help reduce carbon emissions and set energy standards for big corporations, or have them require that every semi on the road get 2 miles a gallon while pumping out toxic waste into the air that everyone breathes?

Pollution is slightly different topic from climate change, but yes, as environmentalist and from my college degree I am strongly against pollution to the environment. Its a big issue. Parallel to climate change, a different issue. I am not worried about CO2 emissions, I am worried about toxics, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, etc. being released into the environment; environmental degredation and destruction of natural habitat, destruction of CO2 sinks (rainforests), overfishing, heavy burden on soil, human population explosion and subsequent rising need for more resources, land, environment to exploit.

quote:

The people who say that our environment hasn't been negatively impacted by our terrible ecological habits make me absolutely sick, and to simply ignore it an push it aside as another "liberal spending plan" absolutely slays me. It's a shame we don't care about the environment we live in.

Thats what people dont get when I say it. Climate change science doesnt address these issues, it only addresses the issue of greenhouse gases (pretty much), by trying to go after industries and ignoring other more important factors that affect environment negatively. Thats what bugs me. Governments and corporations want to maintain status quo, they like the current situation and their profitability, economy, whatever - they want to make people believe that greenhouse gas emissions is all there's to it - fix it and done, but its not the case, far from it. They want to shelve the issue for other generations to fix. Because if we really come down to the heart of the issue we would realize that these same corporations are portraying a wrong image, probably paying these same so-called scientists to protect themselves and pretend like there's something that can be done or is being done about environment.

The single biggest factor for continuing destruction and demise of the world's biosystem is the growing world population, the need for more resources, and subsequent human-driven processes. Climate change ain't even an issue here, that the nature can itself balance out. But as long as we are destroying ecosystems, the gears of the biosphere, pollute the environment and exacerbate the species extinction, we will never be able to fully understand the seriousness of the issue and ways of dealing with environmental issues - not even talking about the so-called climate change.

The17sss

quote:

Originally posted by Shakka
Who does this bitch think she is??

Shakka... check out this short read too, by George Will about the Spanish economics professor who has seen the exact same "climate change" model used in Spain, leading to 18.1% unemployment because of the enormous costs involved in creating these "green jobs".

quote:

The Spanish professor is puzzled. Why, Gabriel Calzada wonders, is the U.S. president recommending that America emulate the Spanish model for creating "green jobs" in "alternative energy" even though Spain's unemployment rate is 18.1 percent — more than double the European Union average — partly because of spending on such jobs?

Calzada, 36, an economics professor at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, has produced a report which, if true, is inconvenient for the Obama administration's green agenda, and for some budget assumptions that are dependent upon it.

Calzada says Spain's torrential spending — no other nation has so aggressively supported production of electricity from renewable sources — on wind farms and other forms of alternative energy has indeed created jobs. But Calzada's report concludes that they often are temporary and have received $752,000 to $800,000 each in subsidies — wind-industry jobs cost even more, $1.4 million each.

And each new job entails the loss of 2.2 other jobs that are either lost or not created in other industries because of the political allocation — sub-optimum in terms of economic efficiency — of capital. (European media regularly report "eco-corruption" leaving a "footprint of sleaze" — gaming the subsidy systems, profiteering from land sales for wind farms, etc.) Calzada says the creation of jobs in alternative energy has subtracted about 110,000 jobs from elsewhere in Spain's economy.

The president's press secretary, Robert Gibbs, was asked about the report's contention that the political diversion of capital into green jobs has cost Spain jobs. The White House transcript contained this exchange:

Gibbs: "It seems weird that we're importing wind turbine parts from Spain in order to build — to meet renewable energy demand here if that were even remotely the case."

Questioner: "Is that a suggestion that his study is simply flat wrong?"

Gibbs: "I haven't read the study, but I think, yes."

Questioner: "Well, then. (Laughter.)"

Actually, what is weird is this idea: A sobering report about Spain's experience must be false because otherwise the behavior of some American importers, seeking to cash in on the U.S. government's promotion of wind power, might be participating in an economically unproductive project.

It is true that Calzada has come to conclusions that he, as a libertarian, finds ideologically congenial. And his study was supported by a like-minded U.S. think tank (the Institute for Energy Research, for which this columnist has given a paid speech). Still, it is notable that, rather than try to refute his report, many Spanish critics have impugned his patriotism for faulting something for which Spain has been praised by Obama and others. Judge for yourself: Calzada's report can be read at http://tinyurl.com/d7z9ye. And at http://tinyurl.com/ccoa5s you can find similar conclusions in "Yellow Light on Green Jobs," a report by Republican Sen. Kit Bond.

What matters most, however, is not that reports such as Calzada's are right in every particular. It is, however, hardly counterintuitive that politically driven investments are economically counterproductive. Indeed, environmentalists with the courage of their convictions should argue that the point of such investments is to subordinate market rationality to the higher agenda of planetary salvation.

Still, one can be agnostic about both reports while being dismayed by the frequency with which such findings are ignored simply because they question policies that are so invested with righteousness that methodical economic reasoning about their costs and benefits seems unimportant.

When the president speaks of "new green energy economies" creating "countless well-paying jobs," perhaps they really are countless, meaning incapable of being counted.

For fervent believers in governments' abilities to control the climate and in the urgent need for them to do so, believing is seeing: They see, through their ideological lenses, governments' green spending as always paying for itself. This is a free-lunch faith comparable to that of those few conservatives who believe that tax cuts always completely pay for themselves by stimulating compensating revenues from economic growth.

Windmills are iconic in the land of Don Quixote, whose tilting at them became emblematic of comic futility. Spain's new windmills are neither amusing nor emblematic of policies America should emulate.

The cheerful and evidently unshakable confidence in such magical solutions to postulated problems is yet another manifestation — Republicans are not immune: No Child Left Behind decrees that by 2014 all American students will be proficient in math and reading — of what the late Sen. Pat Moynihan called "the leakage of reality from American life."